Slate's John Dickerson recently wrote about America's taking-umbrage culture: if someone extremely exaggerates your profile on a New Yorker cover or uses the phrase "lipstick on a pig," your best move is to act as offended as possible. Some religious Americans apparently enjoy taking pointers from their politicians, so we've seen this technique duplicated in reaction to many recent artworks.
Two films that dismay often are Frank Darabont's The Mist and Daniel Day-Lewis's, er, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. In the vastly inferior former, civilians take cover in a grocery store while an ominous mist enshrouds their small Maine town. Marcia Gay Harden sees this as an apocalyptic sign and begins preaching how we all need to convert to Christianity. Hordes of people join her, and some unbelievers are killed off in the name of Christ and Prophet Harden.
There Will Be Blood, meanwhile, pits oil tycoon Day-Lewis against village pastor Paul Dano as they battle to gain influence over Little Boston, Calif. Dano is depicted as hyperbolic and phony, whereas Day-Lewis is presented as …
We'll stop right there, because Day-Lewis' character is what some Christians overlook when speaking about how anti-Christian the film is. The only antagonist that receives any focus is "Paul Dano, because he was so extreme, and so idiotic, and so power-hungry-they're trying to say that's the nature of Christianity." This is despite the fact that Day-Lewis, a wealthy businessman, is self-isolated, atheistic, bitter, unhappy and greedy. And alongside the obvious evil of Harden's The Mist villain, is that film's anti-military slant. It also takes a shot at-get this-hopelessness.
In other words, Religious People of the World: you are not alone. Atheists, agnostics, artists, musicians, robots, scientists, drug dealers, cops, filmmakers, ping-pong players, good guys, bad guys, Godzilla and dogs have all been villainized in
American cinema. Yes, you read that right. Dogs. (Source: All Dogs Go to Heaven, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2).
More than anything, Christians should take these portrayals as a wake-up call. Whom does the public see as their leaders? Televangelists. Ted Haggard. Jesse Jackson. Such people are constantly linked to greed and philandering-just like the politicians and businessmen that art also attacks.
It's not that the world expects religion to have a perpetually flawless incarnation, but when corruption pops up so frequently, it's tough to be impressed. Instead of the charity of religious leaders who are typically considered "great" (e.g., Gandhi, Mother Teresa), most of what we receive is rock star egocentrism and please-donate.
It's easy to walk away from an ambitious film and complain, "That offended me. I'm tired of how my beliefs are portrayed in the media." Truly considering what someone is saying requires a bit more humility. And in an age where the religious are throwing bombs-occasionally even at their fellow believers-it's becoming increasingly dangerous to not listen.
